I've been to Nottingham. It's a lovely place, and I gather Robin Hood lived there before the war, but somewhere in that city, sipping camomile tea before uni-cycling to work, is someone who has far too much time on their hands.

Here's why. Last week, in a recruitment drive, we emailed a job ad to a number of UK universities to post on their job boards.

We were advertising a vacancy for a 'junior PR consultant'. You've guessed it. It's a role for some enthusiastic bright spark who wants a career in our line of work.

Most universities we approached just stuck the ad up. After all, this would get one of their lot onto the right track. The University of Nottingham, however, was having none of it. We received the following reply on email:

"Thank you for posting the above vacancy on our online system My Career. Please note that the University of Nottingham Careers and Employability Service takes a cautious approach towards the wording of vacancy adverts and as such, we are unable to use the word ‘Junior’ as it can be seen as discriminatory. Would it be acceptable for me to change the word to ‘Entry Level’, ‘Graduate’ or ‘Trainee’? I will then be able to publish the advert."

Now, perhaps you could tell me, just how the word 'junior' can be considered 'discriminatory'? After throwing this open to Facebook, one chap who works in finance - a sector famed for treating junior members of staff as the lowest of the low - asked 'how could you put entry-level PR consultant on a business card?' Too true.

Another Facebook pal who is, herself, a graduate hunting for work, said she'd far rather be a 'junior' than a 'trainee'.

Now I can only presume that our patchouli-scented friends at Nottingham Uni interpreted junior as 'secondary' or 'inferior’.

Here's what Google threw up for the definition of 'Junior':

Now, in life, of course we are all equal. And political correctness (whatever the newspaper you read might say) is important. It's a mark of respect for our fellow human beings.

But in the world of business, while we must all be PC, we are not all equal. Someone who still considers sweatshirts emblazoned with their university's name a core part of their wardrobewill have an inferior understanding of public relations than someone who wears double denim to appearedgy, and has been practising it for years.

The latter is a senior PR professional, who effortlessly understands the media and how it operates (albeit through glazed eyes). The other, the junior, will be roughly as much use as a chocolate teapotfor the first few months as they attempt to grasp exactly what it is we do.

University careers services would do well to note that, until their offspring have a couple of years hard labour under their belts, they are juniors - and there is nothing wrong with that.

The most irksome thing about this email is the other adjectives up for grabs are not improvements on 'junior'.We wanted our ad to reach Nottingham grads, so we responded and picked'trainee'.

However,we'd be interested in hearing from any grads out there who have or plan to apply for our role. What title would you rather have? Hell, if you get the job you can even choose (we're nice like that).